


How Stories Are Written

by Tolpen



Category: Original Work
Genre: A True Story, Gen, Slice of Life, Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 03:50:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12832692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tolpen/pseuds/Tolpen
Summary: I am fairly sure every author, no matter what you write, has their ritual which comes before writing the story itself down and publishing it. Here is mine. It is based on a true story - I wrote it as it happened (the only thing left out is returning back to my notebook to write a paragraph or a sentence).I wanted to write a story...





	How Stories Are Written

I wanted to write a story. I opened a text editor and thought: I can't write a new story, I have an unfinished one. It is written in violet ink in my pretty notebook. And then I thought: Ye,s but where is that pretty little notebook where I write story drafts with my pen with violet ink.

I opened the chest by my table where I store papers for drawing and writing. To get it open I had to put down a book about old castles and two sketchbooks, each of them two times used. While I was at it, I put the book on the bookshelf and sketchbooks on the floor. In the chest there was a lot of notebooks, some of them even pretty ones. Each of them contained at least one drawing, few lines of story or a short poem. Some of them were missing papers, that was when I had been si displeased with the work I tore it out of the notebook. None of the notebooks were the one I was looking for, so I only put the two sketchbooks form the floor in there along with two other notebooks I had noticed laying around, and closed the chest.

Then I decided to search the bookshelves. Moving around the room I was still tripping over books and papers, so I took the books, some of them never read, some of them half read, and put them on the shelves as I was passing them by. Lot of them was about biology. One of them was the Sleeping Beauty in verses, a book three times older than I was, and had that one illustration of the prince which always scared me. I've noticed many books that were missing because somebody borrowed them. I've noticed many books which which didn't belong me and I had borrowed them. I felt guilty, since I hadn't read any of them so far. I hoped their owners didn't miss them much. I've noticed a well-read print of Neverwehere stuck between Songs of Old China and the Bible and wondered if it meant something else beside that there was probably enough space when I was tiding the books the last time. But I hadn't seen my notebook.

Then I searched thorough my cupboard. I opened a drawer. It was full of notebooks. Each of them had few pages used, drew and written on and into. One of them held my old biology notes. Two were named after stories I had once wanted to write but did no longer. I felt a pinch of guilt and nostalgia. I moved them all except for the school notes into the chest. The school ones ended up on my work desk. But no sign of the notebook I was searching for.

In the next drawer was a set of crayons which I never opened because I don't use crayons, a tablet which no longer worked, a tangled mess of cables which I was slowly one by one sparing for a cyberpunk costume, and another pile of notebooks. In one of them was a really old drawing, study in costumes and a figure, which I really liked. Different one held first two panels of a comic I had began making and then forgot about. The more biology. A handful of portraits of characters from someone else's story facing left. More biology and some chemistry. Collectible stories of a military cat series I am still writing. The notebook was barely used. Some of those stories had never made it online. I put it aside for later use and put the rest inside the chest, except for the school notes. No pretty notebook in sight.

The shelf of the cupboard contained my dancing shoes. I closed it right away. Some things should stay buried forever.

The next was the wardrobe. The shelves were messy. I found a complete and scarcely used set of coloured pencils, which were meant to be used for special drawings. I distantly remembered that years ago I've received an uncoloured very complicated and detailed drawing which I began to colour with these but never finished it. I found two anti-stress colouring books. And my old case for my glasses. I had never learned how to use the case for glasses because the glasses were always either on my nose or on my night stand next to my bed and the very first thing I always did when I woke up was to reach out for the glasses and put them on. No notebook, though. Not even any I wasn't looking for. I took the colouring books and glasses case out. The books ended up on among the other books on the shelves, the case on night stand. Of course there wasn't much space left on the shelves, so the colouring books had to squeeze next to the Bible. After a second thought I took the pencils out and put the into the drawer to keep crayons some company. Colour squad should keep together.

Then I took a look at my night stand which was actually a chest of drawers where I stored my clothes, but I called it a night stand because it was next to my bed and I had a table lamp on it. The night stand was... A complete mess to put it simply. A hopeless mixture of worthless jewellery, candles, playing cards of all kind, flowers made out of wood, papers, scissors, rubber bands and other means to pacify my hair, small boxes, envelopes, sweets, pens, chopsticks, and bus tickets. No notebook. I didn't really dare to peek into it any closer. There was no notebook and, luckily, not dishes as well. A folded letter caught my interest and I picked it up to open in at read it. It confused me a great deal since it opened _Revered Shylock_. It was clearly my handwriting but it didn't explain why it was signed with _Antonio_. I brushed it off as an old school work after I had noticed a note written in vivid red saying it was well done. I saved the letter. It was a happy thing.

I know myself for nearly two decades by now, so I opened the drawers of the night stand and went searching thorough them. I found and unfinished knitting, it was in fact ruined and I had no chance to save the miserable scarf. I've reunited with my favourite top which is an oversized top which has a picture of the Grim Reaper taking a selfie on it accompanied by _#KillingIt_. I have to wear it over a shirt because otherwise my breasts wall out of it. Unless I wear a black sport bra with it. But it was late November, too cold for anything sleeveless. Unsurprisingly no notebook. Then I searched the pile at the end of my bed. It was a mix of plush toys, yes, I still sleep with them all. One poor fluffy friend had fallen over the edge of the bed and was on the floor, so I picked it up, thanks God the hedgehog was actually from plush, and put it back. There were many scarves, one torn rainbow plastic one which I had saved from a tree with a help of en elderly man a month ago. There were sweatshirts. No notebook, but at this point I was just being thorough and not really looking for it. I took the scarves and some of the sweatshirts I knew I had worn only once or twice and they weren't all that dirty, and put them all back in the night stand where I took them from weeks ago. Then I took the rest of the clothes to the bathroom where we put our laundry.

On the way I've noticed a ring notebook among many other things and papers on one of my mother's aquariums. Since the pretty notebook I was looking for was a ring one, I picked it up as I walked back to my room. It was indeed my notebook and at some point in my life I was searching for it, it had a few reference drawings I had needed to look at back then, but not the one I was looking for right at the moment. So I put it in the chest. By then, the chest was over half full.

The next step was to look thorough my bags. There were only three bags big enough to hold the notebook and I used them, so I looked into them. The first was of course my school backpack. The notebook wasn't there which didn't really came as a surprise, since I had looked into it that day many times before when I was fetching a pet, notes, book or anything else, and the notebook hadn't been in it even then.

The there was my notebook bag which I use only for travelling when I need to move my machine too. I had to take the metal case of watercolour pencils off it, so I could pick it up and open it. As I did, a picket knife fell out and made a heavy noise as it hit the floor. And yes, there was my pretty little notebook, along with a cotton thread which I make friendship bracelets from, a pen case, and a packet of tissues.

I put the pencils on the chest, pen case on the night stand, thread in my backpack and tissues in my pocket and stared at the notebook. I had no idea whether the story I was looking for in it was even worth writing. It was three unfinished pages pages written in a poor English among many other stories made with a terrible usage of language. I was unsure whether the untitled and unfinished story was worth typing into computer when I read what I had written so far. I was fairly certain it wasn't worth all the work it took to find it.

I put the notebook aside, thinking I'd finish the story once it ferments in my mind into something better. Than I sat down and wondered what to do. I wanted to write a story and I had a text editor opened, but I couldn't start anything new, since behind me was a chest full of half finished ideas.

 


End file.
